Well, I can’t say that I have never gotten lost, turned around, confused, or just plain disoriented. I know it’s hard to believe, but it has only happened two or three times. I have to tell ya, each time it has happened, I have felt like the world was coming to an end.
It seems that some people have an inner compass. A part of their brain that operates much like a bee’s other set of eyes. Something inside of these people absorbs light angle, shadows, time of day, and some kind of inner GPS and shoves it all together and spits out where North always is.
Now, you may think, “Jacque, you are so full of shit!”, but I tell you it’s true. To prove it, ask me out into the woods any time you like. If the sun is shining, I can probably say where north is within a tiny bit. Only problem is, bees don’t fly on cloudy days! There’s a reason for that.
This is just a hypothesis of mine. I don’t really know if bees fly on cloudy days but I’ll bet they don’t. If they do, they probably don’t fly far from home. You want to know why? Because you can’t measure the angle of light IF THERE ISN’T ANY!!! How do I know this? Every time I have gotten lost – IT HAS BEEN OVERCAST or RAINY!
Now – I charge each and every one of you to go out on a cloudy day and see if there are any friggin’ bees flying around….I will bet there isn’t. Just an idea I have!
Yes the time I was the most lost it was overcast and began raining. I think you might be onto something. If there were any bees around any more I would try it out. They have all seemed to disappear from around here. Jessie and I went in swamp circles for at least two hours before following the old school tried and true plastic piece of crap compasss. Had $8,000 worth of GPS junk and stayed lost until we remembered good old plastic crap. About got struck by lighting coming out of swamp sooooo happy to see a field. Field, lighting, no good. Thanks for the bee thought.
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I am so glad to hear that we aren’t the only ones….I am actually going to research the bee thing. So glad to see you here. I miss you all so much!
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@Sarah – what is the “true plastic piece of crap compass”?
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“Bees, however, are capable of seeing ultraviolet light, which is invisible to humans. The bee is capable of navigating, even on a cloudy day, by cloud-penetrating ultraviolet light. Honey bees also use the sun as a reference point to communicate to other bees the angle of flight to be followed to arrive at newly discovered nectar-bearing flowers. “…this was taken from http://www.indianchild.com/bees.htm. It does appear that bees do NOT fly in rain. So, they can navigate without direct sunlight….This is also from the same site….” Bees use the sun as a compass. Even when the sun is obscured by clouds, bees can detect it’s position from the light in brighter patches of the sky. Bees also can see ultraviolet designs in flowers like an airplane circling an airport sees the landing lights on a runway. Honeybees also have a built-in clock that appears to be synchronized with the secretion of nectar from flowers.” COOL!!
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